The central issue shown by the movie is that a handful of corporations own a great deal of water located throughout the world. These corporations have privatized water and prefer profits that come from the selling of water rather than making the water available to the people.
· Ecological – As a result of the agriculture in India being inefficient, it requires 5 to 10 times more water than it would normally require. In addition, we have made well over 150,000 chemicals that we add into our environment. We use countless amounts of pesticides and other chemicals onto our crops. These crops absorb these chemicals, and in turn we eat these chemical ridden crops. One of these chemicals, known as Atrozen, causes male frogs and even fish to quite literally turn into fish.
· In additional to the countless chemicals we allow into our environment, we also change how water flows throughout the worlds rivers. Most of the rivers of the earth no longer flow back into the oceans that they most likely have originated from. Dams are the main cause of these issues and they also cause additional damages to the environment.
· Dams prevent nutrients from spreading through the entire river. Instead, these vital river nutrients build up and become detrimental to the environmental behind the dam. The movie also stated that dams could be as much as 20 times worse the coal powered plants. Dams also force countless numbers of peoples to migrate. It is believed that dams have displaced an estimated 40 to 80 million people in the 20th century alone.
· Political – US citizens believe that the government is protecting us from chemicals and other bad things. However, the truth is that they do not protect us at all. As previously mentioned, Atrozen is a chemical that is heavily used in agriculture throughout the US. The use of these chemicals causes countless environmental issues.
· Atrozen is completely banned in Europe; however the European company that makes it sells it in the United States. The US government had over 50 meetings with this corporation and at the end of these meetings the government decided that Atrozen does not cause any harms whatsoever to the environment or to people.
· Economic – In 1997, the World Bank basically forced the privatization of the Bolivia’s water. Otherwise, the World Bank would not provide the necessary funding that was required for water infrastructure and other various technologies. In addition, the World Bank wants more and more dams to be made throughout the world. They know how to spend a billion dollars in one location, think of China’s Three Gorge Dam, but at the same time they are not able fund small scale projects that may only require a few thousand dollars.
· Corporations go into the poor areas of the world, buy the water through privatization and force them to pay for the water. For example, in India the people will need to pay around ten times more for the water than they would have normally paid. According to a quote from one of the Suez employees “People pay for what they consume.” How does a for profit corporation make water available to people who are not able to pay? The sad truth is that these companies will not provide the water unless they get paid to do so.
· Water is a $400 billion industry, which is the third most profitable industries in the world. Water is in industry that is not regulated. The UN says that it would cost $30 billion to provide clean water throughout the world. This only amounts to one third of what is made from the selling of bottled water.
· Media - Suez said that they had built an $80 million water treatment plant in India. In fact, they did nothing of the sort but instead all they did was cover up the polluted water by moving the polluted water into underground pipes. In addition, corporations use the media to scare people by saying how much the cost of water will rise. Their solution to the rising water costs is to privatize the water.
· Legal – Limited liability often protects most of these corporations from their actions. One must also note that people are not able to sue the World Bank.
The most compelling thing that i took out from the movie is that corporations have the power, not political but economic, to buy almost anything they want in the world. The movie showed which corporations, i think it was around 4 of them, owned the water in various locations throughout the world. Truthfully, i did not even consider that corporations already owned the some of the water in the United States. I just asumed that it was just something that happened to "all the other countries."
Thankfully, the movie does provide several alternatives to the issue that is brought about with the privatization of the world’s water. Instead of having a costly centralized water system, that sends water to faraway rural areas, the films suggests that water should become a localized. There are several benefits to the localization of water. The first benefit is that water will become cheaper and cleaner, by using UV rays to purify water, than would be with a centralized water system.
In addition, people can just collect rain water instead of relying on a localized or centralized water system whenever possible. Humans have been collecting rain water for thousands of years, why should we not be able to do it again? One must also realize that people in any given area or environment for the most part have the wisdom and knowledge in how to collect, use and recharge the water. Microloans can be used to help with these endeavors.
One can also rely on a method that most of people can take a part in. People can form various types of groups who could argue that privatization is bad and should be stopped. The bigger the group the more power the group has over corporations. A perfect example of this is what occurred in Bolivia. The Bolivian people have enough people who forced the corporation that privatized water to leave the country and remove the privatization of their water.
The central issue shown by the movie is that a handful of corporations own a great deal of water located throughout the world. These corporations have privatized water and prefer profits that come from the selling of water rather than making the water available to the people.
The most compelling thing that i took out from the movie is that corporations have the power, not political but economic, to buy almost anything they want in the world. The movie showed which corporations, i think it was around 4 of them, owned the water in various locations throughout the world. Truthfully, i did not even consider that corporations already owned the some of the water in the United States. I just asumed that it was just something that happened to "all the other countries."
Thankfully, the movie does provide several alternatives to the issue that is brought about with the privatization of the world’s water. Instead of having a costly centralized water system, that sends water to faraway rural areas, the films suggests that water should become a localized. There are several benefits to the localization of water. The first benefit is that water will become cheaper and cleaner, by using UV rays to purify water, than would be with a centralized water system.
In addition, people can just collect rain water instead of relying on a localized or centralized water system whenever possible. Humans have been collecting rain water for thousands of years, why should we not be able to do it again? One must also realize that people in any given area or environment for the most part have the wisdom and knowledge in how to collect, use and recharge the water. Microloans can be used to help with these endeavors.
One can also rely on a method that most of people can take a part in. People can form various types of groups who could argue that privatization is bad and should be stopped. The bigger the group the more power the group has over corporations. A perfect example of this is what occurred in Bolivia. The Bolivian people have enough people who forced the corporation that privatized water to leave the country and remove the privatization of their water.